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Data-Mining Our Dreams
The New York Times: ARE dreams really meaningful? Virtually every culture throughout history has developed methods to interpret dreams — most notably, in the modern era, the psychoanalytic approach. But today many people assume that this quest has failed. Science, they say, has proved that dreams are just random signals sent from primitive regions of the brain, signifying nothing, and that dream interpretation is a kind of superstition. This conclusion is premature. For many years, researchers (including me) have been using quantitative methods of analysis to study the content of dreams.
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A Sense of Belonging
Are wars, rivalries, and other conflicts an inevitable part of intergroup relations? Marilynn Brewer says no. Internationally recognized for her research on social identity, collective decision making, prejudice, and intergroup relations, Brewer showed that people attach themselves to a group not because of ill feelings toward other groups, but because they simply are looking for a place of trust and security. Brewer is particularly recognized for her theory of optimal distinctiveness, based on the idea that the conflicting costs and benefits of sustaining an optimal group size would have shaped social motives at the individual level.
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Logging In to the Brain’s Social Network
NPR Science Friday: Does the pain we feel from rejection and loss have the same effect as physical pain? How does our brain respond to social interactions? In his new book Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect, social neuroscientist Matthew Lieberman describes the biology behind how our brains engage with the social world. Read the whole story: NPR Science Friday
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Looks Can Be Convincing: To Get Promoted, Just Appear Competent
Fast Company: In a perfect--or at least more rational world--the most qualified people would rise fastest. But new research suggests that just appearing to be competent is as important to getting ahead. How so? Think about why brainstorming has a loudmouth problem: The person with the best ideas isn't the one who gets heard most. Rather, it's the most assertive person--unless you find a way to correct it. Since business is done by people, and people aren't always totally rational, some irrational things happen. Like deferring to the most confident person in the room and allowing a power dynamic to develop from there. ... That is according to the work of Gavin Kilduff and Adam Galinsky.
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Teach Kids to Daydream
The Atlantic: Today’s children are exhausted, and not just because one in three kids is not getting sufficient sleep. Sleep deprivation in kids (who require at least nine hours a night, depending on age) has been found to significantly decrease academic achievement, lower standardized achievement and intelligence test scores, stunt physical growth, encourage drug and alcohol use, heighten moodiness and irritability, exacerbate symptoms of ADD, and dramatically increase the likelihood of car accidents among teens.
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Emotional Profiling
Paul Ekman studies facial expressions and the way they can signal deception and reflect a person’s true underlying emotion. Ekman’s research was the first to show that some types of facial expressions (such as fear, disgust, and anger) are universal among all cultures; and along with Wallace V. Friesen he developed the widely used Facial Action Coding System – a taxonomy of every facial expression. His research on identifying deception and hidden demeanor is used by law enforcement and national security organizations to help identify security threats.
